Yet despite all this the movie, based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, fails to grip as much as you might hope.

Clean-cut Affleck doesn’t really convey the ex-soldier’s bitterness or the mobster’s ruthlessness, instead putting his efforts into impressing us with his character’s progressive credentials as he faces down bigots and champions diversity, not least by romancing Zoë Saldana’s sultry Cuban.

He’s just too decent and too PC to be a credible Prohibition-era crook and that mens the film lacks a vital dark edge.